


Love Is Careless In Its Choosing

by Doctors_in_jumpers



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, High School, Johnlock - Freeform, Lab Partners, M/M, Pining, Teenagers, Teenlock, they're teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 19:53:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30111168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctors_in_jumpers/pseuds/Doctors_in_jumpers
Summary: Sherlock Holmes, the unpopular nerd, has been very much in love with John Watson, the well-liked rugby captain, for years. In their final year in high school, they're paired together as lab partners for a semester. Working that closely with someone does things to you, things the seemingly straight John Watson never could have expected.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Kudos: 11





	Love Is Careless In Its Choosing

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I did delete a work under this name. Yes I am reposting it with a slightly different concept. And that's all fine (everything's fine after all). The title is a line from David Bowie's "Soul Love" and so now every chapter will be a line from a David Bowie song. You're welcome. 
> 
> This chapter title is a line from "Teenage Wildlife". I'm having trouble linking it, but you can listen to it anywhere you usually find music.
> 
> Enjoy!

Sherlock kept his eyes closed while the pluck of strings from the acoustic guitar at the beginning of Space Oddity played on his radio. He only had to make it through this year and then he was free to finally do what he wanted. He’d been waiting to finish high school for what felt like forever, but was only a few years. Now, on the first day of his last year, the idea felt surreal. He would finally be done with people who didn’t understand just how much he  _ knew _ . About everything. 

He wasn’t afraid to admit that he was smart. He was really really smart. And after this year he could finally be looked at for his genius and not how many friends he had. Because he only had Molly Hooper. They did everything together, and had been friends since tenth grade. Bonding over their shared love of science, they had a lot in common. She had never once been mean to him, whereas his peers tended to be cruel and unforgiving in the face of his abnormalities.

After carefully picking out his outfit, simple black jeans and a sweater, so that he wouldn’t get singled out for his clothing, he found himself actually ready for the first day. It was his last after all. On top of that, he had chemistry with Molly, which meant he had a guaranteed lab partner for the semester. 

***

“I will be choosing your lab partners for you this year.” Sherlock felt his face go pale, and his heart started pounding against his rib cage. He looked over at Molly who sat next to him. She looked just as upset as he felt. He looked around the room. At least a quarter of the kids in this room hated him enough to tell him regularly. The next few minutes were a blur of his teacher talking and students chatting, until someone came up to where he sat.

“Hey, Sherlock, right?” He recognized that voice. Sherlock looked up from here he was staring at the floor to find John Watson, captain of the rugby team, looking down at him. He immediately straightened up.

“Uh,” He cleared his throat. “Uh yeah.” 

“Great! We’re lab partners! I’m John by the way.” John stayed standing awkwardly in front of where Sherlock sat. Was Sherlock supposed to be saying something? Shit, John was going to think he was too awkward and he’d ask to switch partners. John opened his mouth to say something, but their teacher interrupted whatever it was.

“I’m going to ask you all to sit with your lab partners for today just to get to know them and then you can sit wherever.” Sherlock heard a few groans from students around the room, and glanced anxiously up at John. Surprisingly, the boy had a small smile on his face. He didn’t look at all upset to be sitting with Sherlock. 

John pulled out the chair next to Sherlock and set his stuff down at the table. 

“So, Sherlock, are you good at chemistry?” The question shocked him. John clearly just wanted to know what to expect with Sherlock as a lab partner, but the way he asked it sounded like he was genuinely curious. 

“Yes.” He decided to be as straightforward with John as possible. If he said nothing more than what was necessary, John wouldn’t know that he was bad at this sort of thing. 

“Good, that’s… that’s good.” John turned to stare straight ahead where their teacher wrote icebreaker questions. Sherlock suddenly remembered how much he hated the first day of school. They sat in uncomfortable silence while everyone around them talked to their partners. Sherlock let himself properly look at John.

Ever since Molly had dragged him out to a rugby game in grade ten, Sherlock had had feelings of some sort towards John, who was now captain of the rugby team. They’d had one class together before now, and had never even spoken, but Sherlock had observed enough to know that John was as kind and friendly as he was attractive. And he was  _ very  _ attractive. Everyone in the school knew who he was, and he never let that go to his head. Long story short, for the past two years Sherlock had crushed after John from afar, and now that would be ruined when John started to hate just like most of his friends did. 

John turned towards him, and Sherlock didn’t look away fast enough. Their eyes met, and he just barely managed not to gasp out loud. Of course he knew John had the bluest eyes ever, but getting to see them up close was a whole new experience. They were absolutely captivating. John cleared his throat, and Sherlock managed to look down at where his hands were folded in his lap. Sherlock panicked. He had to say something.

“Are you?” He cursed at himself inwardly, what an awful way to ask something. John’s confusion was plain on his beautiful face. “Any good at chemistry, I mean.” 

“Oh! Well not really if we’re being honest.” John was too humble. “I need it to get into the program I want though.” Sherlock just nodded. They started to fall into their awkward silence from before, but Sherlock couldn’t stop himself from saying:

“This is an advanced chemistry class, so I’m sure you’re better than you think.” He regretted it immediately. John would think he was being too friendly and would be grossed out. 

Instead the boy smiled. “That’s reassuring, but I guess you’ll see, I really am shit at chemistry. The math stuff is easy enough, but all of the theoretical stuff just screws me up.” Sherlock was too busy thinking about the fact that John had smiled at him to hear what he said next. John looked at him expectantly. Sherlock felt his earlier panic settling back in. 

“S-sorry, what?” Shit shit shit, now John would think he was a stuttering mess. His panic must have been visible enough for John to see, because the boy held up his hands a little to calm Sherlock down.

“I was just asking about why you were taking the class.” Sherlock let his body relax again, but his heart was still beating at an impossible speed. His face felt too warm. He took a small breath to calm himself a little before answering. 

“Like I said, I’m good at chemistry.” John smiled a little, so Sherlock continued. “I’m actually really good at chemistry.” John’s smile spread further across his face.

“I guess I got lucky with lab partners then.” Sherlock felt his shoulders tense up a bit. This is what he couldn’t do. He couldn’t do friendly conversations like this. 

“What program were you planning on going into then?” John looked a little surprised, as if he hadn’t expected Sherlock to ask. He probably hadn’t. There was no way he hadn’t heard from one person or another that Sherlock was cold and mean. 

“Medicine. I want to become an A&E doctor eventually.” Sherlock wasn’t surprised, John would make a great doctor. “What about you?” It was Sherlock’s turn to be shocked, John was really good at making it seem like he genuinely cared. In fact, he was so kind that he probably did, which was just all the more confusing. John had no reason to be nice to him, but he was.

“What about me?” John’s face fell a little.

“What do you want to do after high school?” Sherlock had never given it much though but at the moment, the answer was simple enough.

“Oh um I’m not really sure. Chemistry probably.” John was still looking at him, his eyes had a strange emotion in them, but Sherlock had never been good with feelings so he tried his best to ignore it. Before either of them could say anything more, the bell was ringing and their teacher was yelling something about properly starting the class tomorrow so be prepared. He looked up, and John was standing up to leave, but he turned to smile the brightest smile Sherlock had ever had directed at him. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Sherlock managed to mumble a “yeah you too” and then John was out the door, joking around with one of his idiot rugby friends who was also taking the class. He left the class as well, and went to his next, which was french. 

***

“Sherlock!” Molly waved at him from their table in the corner of the cafeteria. He walked over to her and flopped down into a hard plastic chair. 

“Molly” He nodded at her. He was tired. How could the day only be half over. 

“So, you looked like you were having fun in chem” She raised her eyebrows suggestively. He rolled his eyes.

“Was it really that obvious?” She nodded. He sighed and buried his face in his hands. Molly had known about his little crush on John for over a year now, and never failed to tease him about it. 

“Hey, don’t worry. He seemed like he was enjoying himself as well.” Ever the optimist.

“Yeah that’s because he’s John bloody Watson, he enjoys everything and he’s nice about it when he doesn’t.” She laughed.

“Oh Sherlock it’s always drama with you isn’t it.” She looked a little over his shoulder. “He’s looking at you now, actually!” Sherlock’s head snapped up from where he was still covering it with his hands and he turned around. Sure enough at the rugby table, John was looking at him. The captain smiled and waved a little. Sherlock nodded back.

“He was probably just staring off into space or something.” It was Molly’s turn to roll her eyes.

“Sure, you believe what you want.” She pulled out her lunch and began eating. They made easy light conversation, and soon the bell telling them lunch was over was ringing, and Sherlock was off in the opposite direction of his friend. 

***

On his walk home, he considered all that had happened. Unlike most people, John had been nice and had seemed like he actually cared about what Sherlock had to say. But then, John had a reputation for being incredibly nice all of the time, and it was clear he was, but was he just being polite to Sherlock? Maybe he just hated silence? Most people did. He had seemed so genuine though. It didn’t really matter in the end though, tomorrow John would sit with his friends again and all would be forgotten. They would do labs together but they wouldn’t have to talk more than about what they were studying. That was it, and that was the way it should be. Besides, if John found out about what Sherlock was really like he probably wouldn’t want to talk with Sherlock ever again amyways. No one else did. Except for Molly, but she didn’t count, she was friendly with everyone. 

Then John had smiled at him all class, whether it was his brilliant smile that showed his perfect teeth, or his smaller but just as genuine one, he had directed all of that joy at Sherlock. It had been weird. Furthermore, he had actually  _ waved  _ at him in the cafeteria. Like they knew each other well enough to do that. 

Sherlock was still puzzled once he reached his house. As usual, everyone was working, and they would be until late in the evening, so he just went up to his room to work on his mold cultures. They were growing very nicely, soon he would be able to write down his final observations for his catalogue. One day he hoped to have it all memorized, but for now his index was in a huge notebook. That was another thing John could never know. He was a huge nerd, and that much was obvious by the fact that he was good at chemistry, but John could  _ never  _ know he enjoyed science enough to do his own experiments.

In bed much later that night, his thoughts turned to John again. There was no way the boy liked him in any capacity. He was just being friendly. Sherlock had been friendly too though. Usually he just told people everything he knew about them, it was enough to get them to shut up and leave him alone, but he didn’t want that from John. He desperately wanted John to like him, but he knew that wasn’t possible. Either John would find out that Sherlock was really just not friend material on his own or his friends would tear Sherlock down enough for John to decide the boy wasn’t worth being nice to. With that thought in mind, Sherlock resolved to never reveal anything about himself to John ever again. They could be lab partners, but that’s it. Nothing more than classmates.

***

Sherlock managed to keep his determination not to get close to John until the rugby captain arrived in class and headed straight to where Sherlock was sitting. Molly saw him and got up right away, taking her stuff with her and moving to sit with another girl. Sherlock straightened up a little, but stayed looking down at the binder in front of him. John sat down next to him. His own curiosity winning him over, Sherlock turned towards the boy. Who looked positively delicious in black jeans and a navy blue shirt.

“You know you don’t have to sit here.” John looked at him with another unidentifiable emotion written in his features. 

“I don’t have to, but I want to. Is it okay if I sit here today?” Sherlock dared a glance over to where John’s friends sat looking at them and whispering. He swallowed his panic. John could do what he wanted.

“It’s fine.” John smiled at him, and Sherlock felt himself smile back a little.

  
  



End file.
